Gearbox and Engine issues

I am new to this site and wondred if anyone may be able to point me in the right direction.

I own a 1.8 Petrol Focus 2003 Reg.

Unfortuantely recently I have been having the following two issue.

1 - The gearbox ocassionaly gets stuck in gear and in many ocassions I have got stuck at traffic lights due to not being able to release the gear from eg 3rd in to 1st. After 1 - 2 minutes of having the engine switched off the gearbox is perfectly fine and smooth and the problems may not comeback for another 1-2 days.

2 - The cooling fan comes on 10sec after starting the car from cold and keeps kicking in every 2 minutes at 3 to 4 minutes cycles.

I am really not sure where to start looking for the problem :-(

I have even made sure the aircon is off as originaly I thought the fan was linked to that but no luck..